According to the American Heart Association, nearly 5.7 million people suffer from heart failure. Statistics also show that, each year, 670,000 new cases are diagnosed and more than 277,000 people will die of heart failure. Menorah Medical Center, part of HCA Midwest Health System-Kansas City's largest healthcare network-has received the Get With The Guidelines(r)-Heart Failure Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association for its excellence in the treatment of patients with heart failure.

This award is given only to hospitals that achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure Quality Achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals and have achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with four of nine Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure Quality Measures to improve quality of patient care and outcomes.

Get With The Guidelines is a quality improvement initiative that provides hospital staff with tools that follow proven evidence-based guidelines and procedures in caring for heart failure patients to improve outcomes, prevent future hospitalizations and prolong life.

Under Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure, heart failure patients are started on aggressive risk reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, diuretics, and anticoagulants in the hospital. They also receive alcohol/drug use and thyroid management counseling as well as referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged.

"Menorah Medical Center's team is to be commended for this commitment to improving the quality of care for their patients," says Lee H. Schwamm, MD, chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "The goal of the American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines program is to help healthcare providers implement appropriate evidence-based care and protocols that will reduce disability and death and improve the quality of life for patients. Published scientific studies are providing us with more and more evidence that Get With The Guidelines works. Patients are getting the right care they need when they need it. That's resulting in improved survival."

"Menorah Medical Center is dedicated to being among the top hospitals nationwide in the care of heart failure patients and implementing the American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure program is helping us accomplish this goal by making it easier for our professionals to improve the long-term outcome for our patients," says Steven D. Wilkinson, President and Chief Executive Officer, FACHE.